to penetrate through the thick gloom of CHAP. heathen tradition.

1. Allegory and perfonification feem to have been peculiarly agreeable to the genius of antiquity, and the fimplicity of truth was perpetually facrificed at the shrine of poetical decoration. Obedient to the call of a luxuriant fancy, inanimate objects burst forth into life and action, and the whole material creation affumed a new degree of importance. The progenitors of mankind were elevated to a rank above that of mortality, and were adored as gods by the blind fuperftition of their defcendants. Univerfal nature, and even abstract ideas, received not unfrequently the honours of canonization, and acted a confpicuous part upon the stage of ancient mythology. The ocean put on the menacing frown of a gigantic demon; the ark was transformed into a mysterious female; and creative love was fymbolized under the image of a beautiful fylph, decked with golden wings, and hovering over the wide expanse of the chaotic abyss.

2. The obfcurity, neceffarily attendant upon allegorical defcriptions, was height

C 3

ened

1.

SECT. ened by the vanity, which prompted each I. nation to adapt, to their own peculiar mythology, facts equally connected with the whole race of mankind. Commemorative ordinances were established, and remarkable events were exhibited in a kind of scenical representation. In fome cafes their origin was remembered, in others it was totally forgotten, and thus would for ever have remained, had not the page of Scripture afforded that explanation, which had long been obliterated from the annals of Paganifm.

3. A confiderable portion of ancient fable has been handed down to us, through the medium of the literature of Greece, and in its paffage has received a very great degree of corruption. The religion of that celebrated peninfula is confeffedly of foreign extraction. Egypt and the east were the fources, from which the Greeks equally derived their origin and their mythology: but the faftidious delicacy of claffical ears, and the vain affectation of remote antiquity, induced them to corrupt various oriental words, and to feek for the radicals of them in their own language.

Herod. lib. ii. fect. 4, 43, &c.

1.

This vanity has been productive of many CHAP. abfurd misrepresentations, and has fuperinduced much obfcurity over feveral remarkable traditions. It will be neceffary therefore, in the elucidation of Greek antiquity, frequently to have recourfe to the oriental dialects. The derivation of the very alphabet, used by that polite and ingenious nation, offers itfelf as a clue to direct us in our researches. It naturally leads us to that wide spreading language, which once extended itself over so many of the western nations of Afia, and which still prevails, in the fhape of one of its dialects, through fo large a portion both of Africa, and of the East the same radicals equally serve to form the basis of the kindred tongues of Chaldea, Syria, Paleftine, Phenicia, and Arabia. By the commerce of Tyre this language was diffufed round the coafts of the Mediterranean; and the adventurous navigators of Carthage have left fome traces of it even upon the remote shores of Bri

d Upon the propriety of adopting this fyftem, let Plato himfelf fpeak: Eννοω γαρ, ὅτι πολλα οι Έλληνες ονόματα, άλλως τε και οι ύπο τοις Βαρβαροις οικέντες, παρα των Βαρβαρων ειλήφασι —ει τις ζητοι ταυτα κατα την Ελληνικην φωνην, ὡς εοικότως κειται, αλλα μη nal οισθα ότι απορού εξ ἧς το όνομα τυγχανει ον, EXELVNY, PLAT. Cratylus.

ay.

SECT. tain. The fecluded defcendants of Ifrael

I.

occupied but an inconfiderable divifion of that immenfe tract, over which this ancient tongue had extended itself; nor does it appear probable, that the Greeks borrowed many oriental radicals immediately from that people. It is more likely, that they were adopted from fome of the collateral dialects of those eastern nations, which were lefs averfe than the Jews from an unreftrained intercourse with mankind.

• This fuppofition neither contradicts nor corroborates the opinion of Mr. Bryant, respecting the origin of the radicals, which form the bafis of his very valuable work. He deduces them indeed from the ancient Ammonian dialect; but by much the greatest part of them, as must be evident to any person in the least degree converfant with the facred language, is in reality pure Hebrew. The Ammonian tongue appears, in fact, to have been no other than a mere dialect, and, like most of the other dialects spoken in western Afia, to be ultimately refolvable into the language of Paleftine. The present hypothesis therefore will remain equally tenable, through whatever channel the Greeks may be supposed to have borrowed their oriental radicals. For if the languages of Chaldea, Syria, Phenicia, and the Ammonians, be in reality only different dialects of one primitive tongue, it matters little, to which of them the Greeks were fpecially indebted.

The radicals, which Mr. Bryant produces as being Ammonian, and which are at least equally Hebrew, are Ham, Chus, Mizraim, Ab, Aur, El, On (N), Ait (moft probably the Chaldaic form of WN, as in the derivative pr a furnace) Ad, Ees, Di, Cohen, Baal, Keren, Oph, Ain, Apha, Aft, Shem, Shemesh, Melech, Zar, Phi, Ai, Beth. It is fuperfluous to

bring

Depending then upon the three rules CHAP. which are here laid down, I fhall endea- I. vour to analyse many ancient traditions, partly by divefting them of their allegorical obscurity; partly by depriving them of their local appropriation; and partly by deducing the etymology of terms, not from Greek, but from oriental radicals.

If, in the fequel of the prefent investi

bring forward any inftances of "
common names relating to
"places," as Mr. Bryant himself allows, that "they are for
"the most part fimilar to those in the ancient Chaldaic, and
"admit of little variation." Anal, vol. i. p. 91.

Since then it appears, that the Ammonian is, in reality, a mere collateral dialect with the Hebrew, I cannot see the reafon, why Mr. Bryant, and more particularly his ingenious fucceffor, Mr. Allwood, fhould cenfure fo feverely those who make use of the Hebrew language in elucidating ancient mythology. The fact is, they, who are thus censured, do not fo much depend upon the Hebrew, as upon the Hebrew dialects; but the Ammonian, from the specimens which are given of it in the Analyfis, is undoubtedly a collateral dialect with the Hebrew; confequently, most of those Greek words, which are derived from it, muft ultimately be refolved into that ancient tongue, which extended itself through all the western regions of Asia. It matters little, whether the Hebrew be the fountain, from which so many kindred ftreams have flowed, or whether fome more primeval language be equally the parent of the Hebrew and its dialects: it is fufficient for the prefent argument, if it be allowed, upon the authority of Plato, that many terms in the mythology of the Greeks are borrowed from those whom he ftyles barbarians.

gation,